Points of InterestXavier School for Gifted Children, Triskelion, Baxter Building

First AppearanceUltimate Spider-Man #1 (2000)

Significant Issues

appearance of Spider-Man (Ultimate Spider-Man #1, 2000); appearance of the X-Men (Ultimate X-Men #1, 2001); appearance of the Ultimates (The Ultimates #1, 2001); appearance of the Fantastic Four (Ultimate Fantastic Four #1, 2004)

In this reality, with some exceptions, Earth was all but devoid of heroes until very late in the 20th Century. At this time, a sudden upsurge in accidentally, and sometimes purposefully, powered individuals drove the public into an increased state of paranoia and anxiety. Due to an increase in mutant activity which fueled the hysteria, most of the super powered beings were mislabeled mutants and treated with the same distrust as what, to most people, seemed like genetic aberrations.

Nick Fury, a member of the government group S.H.I.E.L.D., has become responsible for any "unauthorized genetic mutations" that are above the age of 18. These beings have been organized into the state-sponsored Ultimates team in the United States and similar teams in Europe. Powered individuals that do not join these teams can potentially be treated as a criminal, although some masked vigilantes such as Daredevil seem to operate under the radar of the government. Additionally, mutants have not been coerced into service under this same schema.

Unlike the 616 Marvel Universe, the Earth of this universe has had very little contact with extraterrestrial forces. The only definitive contacts have been with the Kree race, via their defector, Mahr Vel, the android Vision, who warned of an ancient robotic entity known as Gah Lak Tus, and the Cithara, a shape-changing race which has attempted to conquer and destroy the earth at least twice. While the super hero team, the Fantastic Four, has discovered a older, decaying universe bordering their own known as the N-Zone, Earth-1610 has generally been untouched by extra-universal contact.

It remains to be seen whether the inner forces of the infant Age of Heroes in this universe will be as welcome a boon as it has so far been on Earth-616, or an abhorrent plague that humanity will eventually rid itself of.